Ella Martinez: In Search of Mutants
by IggyRoX234
Summary: Hello, my name is Ella Martinez. You know me as Max's sister, but there's a lot more to it. A lot more...
1. Prologue Chapter

**Disclaimer: I am not James Patterson…*gasp; dramatic music* **

**Prologue Chapter**

Hi, my name is Ella Martinez. You've probably heard of my sister because she is super-freaking-cool. Her name is Maximum Ride but I just call her Max because that's what everyone else does except for evil scientists. Long story that I'm not going to tell you. Okay, so anyway, my sister got away with being 2% avian which is super scientist-ese for bird. That means that she has giant wings that are HUGE. And also she's really tall and doesn't have to watch what she eats at all because she was built that way by Jeb Batchelder who is a freaky weird creeper. And she's supposed to save the world from global warming or pencils or something (I have a short attention span).

I, on the other hand, did not get off so easily. So, guess what? My sister's 2% bird and my mom never told her this but I have some "animal DNA" in me too. I, Ella Martinez, 13 year old president of the Thomas Jefferson Middle School drama club, future actress and singer, (breath) am 3% yorkie. Like the dog. And let me tell you, that 3% has changed me a lot. So first of all, I have a tail, which is really annoying. It's really small because it's a yorkie tail, but still. I've learned to control it though and tape it to my back so that no one is like, "OMG, YOU HAVE A TAIL!" And then they would spread it all over Twitter. No that would not be good for me. But there are some perks to being 3% yorkie. I'm adorable. It's a fact, I'm not being ostentatious (which means stuck-up, I looked it up in the dictionary). Also I have really shiny hair. I'm a little bit colorblind, but not so much that colors don't look normal to me. I just have trouble with grey's because I can't tell if they're black or just grey or something.

Other than being 3% yorkie, I love ice cream and cookies, I love singing and acting, I am in love with watching the sunset, and…I drink diet pepsi because it makes no sense to drink the kind with like, 100 calories in it. It basically tastes the same.

Anyway, so my mom says that I'm going to have to find a "legion". A legion is a group of people who fight like badasses together. Okay, that's not the exact definition, but that's basically what it means. I have to recruit people who are also "mutants" so that we can help Max and her "flock"(who the heck came up with that name?) SAVE THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS! Whoa, where did that random outburst come from? I have absolutely no idea.

Also, I kind of like one of Max's flock members. His name is Iggy and he is (don't tell him I said this) super hot. But that's not the reason I like him, it's just part of the reason. He's also funny and even though he's blind, he doesn't really act really depressing and sit in a corner all day. So, yeah, I really like him. J

Okay, so now you basically have accepted a challenge. I am recruiting for my very own "flock" (but we will come up with a better name for us because we are going to be so cool). But I don't want people going and getting mutated by the School so that you can be part of my legion. So just…calm yourselves down because that's not what I'm asking of you. So basically if you see me or my "group" you won't yell "THAT'S ELLA MARTINEZ!" Got it? Kay, love ya. See you in Chapter 1.


	2. A Visit From Jeb

**Disclaimer: You know what a disclaimer is. That's what this is. Okay, thanks for reading this disclaimer. I hope you liked it. End of disclaimer.**

**Chapter 1**

Today I had a vision. And it was super cool.

_I was walking through a hallway. It was all white on the walls which was really bright for my sensitive eyes. Then I was running through the hallway because there wasn't an end in sight. Anyway, I was running and then finally I reached this weird room with nothing in it except for a table. And so I just walked in and then this guy like popped out of NOWHERE and then someone grabbed me from behind._

That's not the awesome part. Don't worry.

_Okay, so then I saw these other people whose faces I could not make out exactly. There were three girls I think and three boys and then there was me. And we were all fighting together and it was really awesome! Everyone was really good. It was like there should be some guy singing "Kung Fu Fighting" in the background. _

Yep and that was my fantasy. I know what you're thinking, how can a girl as cool as me not have a boyfriend. That is the question I ask myself every morning.

But that was when my alarm decided to go off and start singing "It's a Small World" I rolled over. _Yeah, yeah, it's a small freaking world, I get it. _I punched the off button and groaned.

"Ella, school in 25 minutes!" I heard my mom yell from downstairs. I groaned again in reply. I dragged myself out of bed and brushed my teeth, almost falling asleep with the tooth brush in my mouth. _1 week of school left and then summer vacation. Stay in bed all day and stay up all night. Maybe I'll become nocturnal._

I spit into the sink and wiped my mouth with a towel. Then I looked in the mirror. I still looked the same as I did yesterday, but you know us mutant girls, soooo narcissistic!

I took the "Ouchless" brush off my dresser. By the way, the name is a lie. Then I pulled my hair into my signature ponytail and put some mascara and lip gloss on. I don't put on a lot of makeup for my age, which I'm proud of.

"Ella, come downstairs, sweetie!" my Mom shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

"On minute!" I threw on a pink tank top and shorts and ran downstairs.

"I'm in the kitchen." Mom said. I walked in. Mom was holding a newspaper and was doing the crossword puzzle. When she saw me, she smiled.

"Morning." I said and grabbed a banana from the bowl in the middle of the counter. I peeled it and started to eat it.

"Good morning. Okay, you have-what-ten minutes till school?"

"Yesh." I said through chews on banana. Then I went over to the sink and spit it out, remembering with a start that I actually think bananas are disgusting.

"So, Jeb's here and-" my mom said quickly.

"MOM! You invited _Jeb _into our house? Why did you do _that_? He is a creep." I said, spitting out some more banana.

"Honey, we need to discuss some things about your…_condition._" she put her hand on my shoulder.

"No need to speak in italics, Mom." Ew…who invented the banana. No one likes you, dude who invented bananas! "Being 3% yorkie is pretty cool with me. I mean I don't mind being adorable and having great hair." I joked.

"Yes," she said slowly, "but you're part of something now. Something a little bit bigger than middle school."

"I'm listening." I said.

"Well, I'm going to let Jeb explain."

"Of course. Why would I want to hear something from my mother when I can hear it from a nerd who stalks our family?" I threw my hands up for emphasis and my mom gave me "the look". You know what it is. Whenever you say something rude, your Mom makes it clear that she doesn't like what you just said by getting all squinty about it. "Fine, where is he?"

"He's watching TV in the living room." she bit her lip a little. "Be nice to him, Ells. He means well."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I groaned. In the living room, Jeb was watching the Ellen Degeneres show. When he saw me he quickly switched the TV.

"Hi, um, Mr. Batchelder." I said, waving slightly.

"Hello, Ella. I was just talking to your mother and we both agree that since you're almost in high school now, it's time you learned a little bit more about what you are." he took out a sheet of paper with all these numbers and statistics and graphs.

"Do I have to read that?" I looked at it with contempt.

"Not if you don't want to." he shrugged.

Did I mention how much I love Jeb!

"But you're going to need to listen to me. I have a lot to talk about with you."

Eh, Jeb kinda sucks.

"Well, I have school in 5 minutes."

"I can work with that." he said. "Max, your sister, has her flock. Max needs to save the world, as you must have heard somewhere along the lines. And so as her sister-ahem-as her _mutant _sister…"

_Thanks for reminding me. I almost forgot for a moment that I'm not a normal girl._

"As her mutant sister, you…well, you need to help her."

"Okaaaay." I said.

"Are you listening to what I'm saying?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.

"Mostly. School is in four minutes now, just so you have an idea of where we stand right now." I rocked back and forth on my heels.

"So your mother has told you about how you have to gather together a group of people to help you, right?"

_A group of people helping me helping my sister help the world. Got it._

"Right." I replied, tapping my watch slightly.

"Well, your quest for mutant teenagers begins today. You have three weeks to come up with five other mutated children or else you will be of no help to your sister and…we really need you."

_Freaking hell. _


	3. Jay

**Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or any of the flock or their friends or their friend's friends. Maybe I do own their friend's friends. Hmmm…**

**Chapter 2**

_Three freaking weeks? How am I supposed to find five mutants kids to be a flock with me in three weeks. It's impossible. I HATE MY LIIIIIIIIIIFE! I wish that-_

"Ella." I heard someone's voice from behind me and I dropped the book that I was putting in my locker onto my head.

"Oh gosh, I'm sorry for surprising you."

"Oh…hi, Ben." I muttered while rubbing my head. I reached down, but Ben dove for the book and tried to return it to the top of my locker. Unfortunately, he was about a foot too short and couldn't reach, so I helped him.

"So," he leaned against a locker, "How's life?"

Ben was this kid who followed me everywhere. He was short (**Not that I have anything against short people**) with brown hair and watery blue eyes. He was nice, but he tried way too hard and was kind of annoying.

"My life? So-so." I grumbled, still really upset about the news that I had received this morning.

"Aww…why?" he asked.

"Nothing. It's girl stuff." I said. _Yeah, mutant girl stuff. _

"Oh, I get it. You're PMS-ing." he shrugged like he could care less.

"Ben, I'd like it if you left now." I said.

"It's okay. I know the drill. Girls are hormonal. Gots it." he walked backward a little.

"Ben, get out of here."

He scampered off to be freakish somewhere else. I hate that kid. Suddenly, someone opened the locker door next to mine and closed my locker.

"Um…" I said. The girl who has the locker next to me is named Kate. She has long light brown hair and hazel colored eyes, but she wears color contacts to make them blue.

"Hi, Ella." she said.

"Um…your locker is kinda blocking my locker." I mumbled.

She finished looking at herself in the mirror. "What?" she asked.

"Can you move your locker door?" I said, a little louder.

"I need to get my stuff for Spanish." she said, her fake blue eyes fake clueless.

"I need to get my stuff for science." I replied and opened my locker door, causing hers to close.

And the same thing happened about a million times until it came to a girl fight which meant calling each other mean names.

"Freak." Kate said. _SLAM!_

"Wannabe." I replied. _SLAM!_

"Chickenlegs." she closed my locker door, grabbed her stuff and left. By the way, this isn't one of those stories where we used to be the best of friends and now she hates my guts and I'm clueless and then at the end we're BFFs. Kate and I were never close. She was always wanted to be the most popular and it wasn't that hard for her because she was so confidant. She wasn't actually that pretty. Her nose was too big and he lips were too small. Also she had awkward broad shoulders. My Mom says it's all confidence and that crap. I think it might have something to do with global warming.

I grabbed my science book and walked into science class. I sat down next to my friend Carlos. He looked at me and smirked a little, and then pointed to the front of the room.

"Check it out." he said with his Spanish accent.

I glanced at the front of the class where the teacher and that kid who no one talks to very much, yelling at each other. He was saying something about how he couldn't do the experiment that we were required to do. Mrs. Walsh was asking why and he was doing everything he possibly could to not answer that question.

"Fine!" he shouted, and walked back to his desk. Mrs. Walsh shook her head.

"What do you think's up with um…" I started, trying to think of the boy's name. I felt like I should know it considering I'd been in science with him all year.

"Jay." Carlos leaned over to me to whisper, "I think he might have something wrong upstairs. He completely freaks out whenever we get near water. Remember the field trip last year?"

Yeah, I do remember the field trip. It really sucked. We basically went to this pond place down the street from the school and it was really small but everyone went in the water except for a few kids. Jay never went near the water. He stared at the pond the whole time with so much disdain you could've sworn he was looking at a murderer. He really doesn't say much though, so I have no idea of what his sanity level is. All I know is that mine is slowly decreasing.

"So, everyone. We've been learning about lakes and rivers. Can anyone tell me what the difference between a river and a meander?" Mrs. Walsh asked. Here's where I blanked out. I figure that saving the world is slightly more important that knowing any of this stuff.

_How will I know who's mutant and who's just weird? How do I know if mutants even act weird? Is Carlos a mutant?…No, I don't think so. But it's a possibility. _

"I'm going to pass you out a beaker of lake water a a beaker of river water. I want you to write down your observations on the lab sheet that is being passed around and then tell me the difference between the two.

Suddenly, I heard a giant crashing sound behind me and a few people screamed. Jay had pushed his chair over.

"Go to the office." Mrs. Walsh growled.

"Okay." he quietly rolled out without saying anything else.

I heard murmurs behind me. "Mentally unstable." "Nut case." "Wackjob."

My hand shot into the air. "Excuse me, may I go to the bathroom?" I asked. Jay was almost out the door.

"Can you wait for a minute?" Mrs. Walsh asked, looking aggravated.

"No, I'm going to throw up." I said, trying to look as sick as possible.

"Okay, okay. If-"

"Kay, thanks, Mrs. Walsh." I ran out of the room.

"Jay!" I whisper-shouted at him from behind him. He turned around.

"What?" he whipped around. He was really tall and gangly and looked like…well, a geek. He sighed and looked to the side, "I have to go." he whipped around and started walking.

"Um…no! I mean, wait. I mean, Jay!"

"What?" he turned around and looked me in the eye.

"I need to talk to you about something serious." I pulled him behind a corner. "Is there anything weird like going on with you?" I felt like a jerk and an idiot. "I mean…no that didn't come out right. I mean…could we maybe talk about this somewhere else. Like my house?" I asked.

He looked confused. "Uh…no. I…this just is weird. I need to go."

He walked away. I took a breath to say something else, but decided not to. I walked him walk all the way down the hallway. Suddenly, I couldn't see him anymore. I squinted. Nope, he wasn't there anymore.

There was definitely something weird going on with Jay. I was going to say something to him. Sometime.

"Do you have a hall pass?"

_Are you serious?_

"Um…no. I was going to throw up." I turned around.

"Are you alright?" It was Mr. Gabriel, who was this student teacher at my school who spiked his hair and wore skater t-shirts in order to be one of the cool teachers. I guess he was nice enough. I mean. he's never really done anything to directly harm me or anything, but I just find him a little annoying.

"Yeah, I think I'm fine. I just got a little light-headed. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep. And you know." I shrugged.

"Okay." I started to walk away, but then I felt his arm on my shoulder. "Were you just talking to Jay Simons?" he asked , cocking an eye brow.

"Yes." I said.

"Oh. I would advise you not to do any more of that, young lady." his green eyes looked to the side.

"Excuse me?" I said, out of shock. Okay, teachers are supposed to help kids who have are socially awkward, not try to make other kids stay away from them. Was this a joke or something.

"I'm serious. There are some…issues that we have about Mr. Simmons. I mean…" Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed. "That guy is ca-razy!" Wow, that was really stupid and pointless. Yet another attempt of Mr. Gabriel trying to be _cool. _

Wait, did he know something about Jay. Did he know if he was a mutant or not. This conversation could make my quest about twelve times easier. Roughly.

"Wait…does Jay have anything…uh, weird about him?" I tried to look as concerned as possible about Jay even though I haven't said one word to him. Ever.

"You should go back to class." he replied, calmly.

"Um…"

"Sweetie, listen."

And that's when I passed out.


	4. Mr Gabriel is Evil Probably

**Disclaimer: I would like to take a moment to diss a claim. Here it goes: I AM NOT THE OWNER OF MAXIMUM RIDE OR ANYTHING IN THIS STORY MOST LIKELY EXCEPT MY CHARACTERS LIKE JAY, BEN, ZENDI, AND KATE! SO FAR! **

**Also, Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental. No similarity to any person either living or dead is intended or should be inferred. Haha, this statement always makes me giggle. **

**Chapter 3**

I woke up in the nurse's office with a cold thing on my head.

"She told me she was feeling light-headed. I think she just passed out." I heard Mr. Gabriel say. I opened my eyes, but immediately closed them, feeling dizzy.

"Okay, thank you for bringing her here." the nurse said. What was the other choice? Leave me passed out on the floor in the middle of the hallway? Yeah, wouldn't have been suspicious at ALL.

"Any time." he said. "By the way…" then I just heard whispers.

Okay something weird was definitely going on here. There was no way that Mr. Gabriel was flirting with the nurse because she was old and smelled like antiseptic. So, he was obviously saying something to her. I didn't like where this situation was going. It's like when you have a dream and these people are all talking about you but you're just watching and not doing anything because it's a dream and everything.

"Hit her head?" the nurse whispered.

"I know. She fell and hit that wall really hard. So…if she says anything…"

"Got it. Say no more. Have a good day, Mr. Gabriel."

That was when I jumped up and pointed a finger at him while he started to leave.

"Oh, sweetie, don't stand up." the nurse said. "You'll make yourself nauseous."

"I did not hit my head on a wall. I just fell down…and…and…" Nurse lady was right. Why do grown-ups have to be right all the time?

"Just sit down," Mr. Gabriel said.

"He's lying though. He was talking about Jay Simmons and then…"

And then I puked all over her shoes.

I obviously got sent home. Because apparently they don't want you puking and getting other kids sick at school. Who knew? But Mr. Gabriel had been saying something about Jay, something about me not talking to him. And then he told me to listen and I feinted like in a bad Spanish soap opera. I mean, he was a teacher, right? Teachers are not supposed to tell you not to interact with other students and then make you feint. That's right, I think he MADE me feint. Wow, I sound nuts. That's probably because I am, now that I have two weeks and six days to get five people to be in my mutant league. My level of sanity is slowly decreasing. By the end of this, if I'm not dead, I'm going to be in a straight jacket, at least.

"Ella? How are you feeling?" My mom walked into my room where I was angrily typed an account of what happened today.

"I'm fine, just a little freaked out about finding my mutant brethren in two weeks and six days." I slammed down on the keyboard and just let random letters and numbers fly across the computer screen.

"Yeah, I know it's going to be hard for you." she leaned against the doorway. "But, you are strong."

"I'm failing gym class." I said emotionlessly.

"You're failing? Never mind. You just need to get some positive inspiration." she smiled.

"What, do you have a radar that tells me where the mutants live on our street? That would make my life _so _much easier!" I said.

"No, I don't have that."

_No, duh, Mom._

"But I do want you to think about how mutants act."

"How would I ever know a fact like that?"

"Well, what do you do to accommodate with your situation?" she asked me. But it was one of those questions that she knew the answer but she wanted me to say it so that she knew that I knew it. Teachers do it all the time.

"I stay away from cats because they freak me out. And I don't show off my canine teeth at the dentists because they're long and everything. And…"

"Good, what I'm getting at is that mutants are going to act strange around certain things because their DNA is…" she trailed off, trying to find the right word.

"Totally screwed?" I provided.

"Exactly." she said, while walking down the stairs. "Take Magnolia for a walk. It'll get your mind off it."

_No it freaking won't. _I thought inside my head. But I didn't say that because I'd probably be grounded which would not be a good thing for my quest. "But it's raining!" I yelled down the stairs.

"Bring an umbrella!" she yelled back. I hate when Mom's bring out the logic.

I threw on my blue rain coat and the only umbrella we had, which was from when I was eight and was going through "the princess phase". It had all the Disney princess's on it. I've been made fun of by people for using it, but it's an umbrella and if it covers my head from rain, I'm happy.

I found Magnolia on her back in the living room looking like someone had shot her. I kicked her lightly and she shook herself and got up.

"Come on, we're going on a walk." I said to her. Why do people talk to dogs. You see people do it all the time and no one thinks it's weird. But if you talk to a weird person, it's like, no way, what the heck are you doing?

"Can you sit?" I asked Magnolia. She looked at me with a blank expression. I swung her leash and she seemed to get excited about that.

"Now can you sit?" I leaned in to her face. She tilted her head like I was crazy. "Alright, dog." I clipped her leash to her collar. "Let's go."

"Be back at seven." mom yelled from the kitchen.

"Yeah, I know." I opened the door. The rain came down steadily, pelting my umbrella.

Magnolia trotted ahead pulling on her leash. Suddenly she perked up her ears and started barking crazily.

"What is it?" I yanked on her leash.

"Hi, Ella!" a chirpy little voice said.

"Hi, Zendi." I sighed. Zendi was a little girl who lived down the street from me. She pale skin with dark brown eyes and light brown hair. She was about ten probably, but she seemed to always be outside talking to me. Her name was strange, but her parents are really weird about names. Her older brother's name is Hendrix, which apparently was this rock star guy. Only problem is that Hendrix is a complete nerd.

"Are you on a walk?" she asked, skipping along beside me.

"Yes." _That would be why I'm walking outside with my dog._

"Cool. So, did you know," _Here we go. _"That the sentence 'the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' uses every letter of the alphabet?"

"Nope. I did not know that." I said, stopping for Magnolia so she could sniff where other dogs have…um…marked.

"Oh, well, Hendrix told me that yesterday."

"Hendrix is a smart cookie." I said, tugging on the leash slightly. Hendrix is the kind of kid that is famous for being locked in lockers and stuffed into garbage cans. I have no idea why, though. That was sarcasm, by the way.

"Ella, is it true that snakes are highly flammable and will blow up if you shoot them?"

Okay, that was a really awkward question. Little kids are like that sometimes though. Anyway, Zendi was so adorable that I really didn't care what she was saying.

"Well, I'm not really sure." I shrugged. "Maybe."

"Really?" she asked, her dark eyes widening. "That's so sad."

"Actually, snakes don't feel pain the same way we do." That was what my mom told me about my fish when it died from wedging itself under a rock for a week. I guess that's what you get for buying a black fish and naming it Sally: An emo fish.

"But, they still feel pain." she mumbled.

"I guess you're right, Zendi. You should probably go home, though. It's raining like crazy." I patted her shoulder. She always wore this long turtleneck with pink and red stripes down it even when it was summer. It was one of those phases that kids have. I had a faze where I only wore overalls for a year. That's right: I was _that _cool as a child.

"Yeah. Hey, Ella, would you ever shoot a snake?" she tilted her head.

"No. It would blow up and I'd die." I replied. Magnolia chose that moment to see a squirrel and try to pull me down the street.

"Don't you care about the snake?"

"Um…Zendi, I have to be going. I…my mom…see you tomorrow."

I let Magnolia pull me around the corner and down the hill and back to my house.

"Ella, what took you so long?" my mom asked when I walked through the door, soaking wet with my hair hanging in clumps and some of my eye makeup smeared down my face. I would probably be scared of my reflection.

"I just got a little hung up talking to that girl, Zendi."

"Zendi Jones?" Mom turned on the kitchen sink.

"Yeah. She was talking about…snakes. Or something like that." I shook my hair and a little bit of water sprayed around. Another thing that just is like an instinct for me is shaking out my hair out when it's wet.

"Stop it. Don't shake your hair out in the foyer."

"Fine." I stomped into the living room and shook my hair out more. The phone started to ring. The thing about our phones is that one has a really high pitched ring and one has a really low one, so it's like an acapella phone choir.

"Hello?" my mom tucked the phone between her chin and her shoulder. "Oh, okay. Yes. I'll be right over." I heard the beeping sound and my mom set down the phone. "Ella. I have to go on a work call. Get in the car."

"Can I stay home and watch TV?" I whined.

"No, you're not staying home tonight. After all, you never know what could happen in the exciting life of a veterinarian." she waved her hands, like she was performing a magic spell. Moms are so embarrassing.

"Mom, I had a rough day."

"Nothing a good car ride can't fix."

"Mom!" I groaned. But I opened the garage door and climbed into the car anyway. Maybe I'd fall asleep and she'd just leave me in the car or something.

We got there in less than twenty minutes and we ran to the house because there was lightning cracking through the sky and I have a major phobia of thunder storms.

Their house was light green like a lime and had cute little white shutters and a swing on the tree. It was very quaint. I could imagine a four year old girl playing in the yard.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to stop and admire the house and landscape because I was at the door, knocking hysterically, trying to get inside. I pushed up against the door and rang the doorbell, which is not an easy thing to do when you're freaked out by a thunderstorm.

Without warning, the door opened and I fell inside. "Sorry." I murmured from my position on the floor of their house.

"Oh, it's fine, dear." a nice woman helped me to my feet.

My mom stepped in the doorway with her vet stuff and shook the lady's hand.

"Can you close the door?" I asked, looking at the angry purple clouds passing over us. It was already night, so the storm was probably not that dark. It was just that it was almost night time. At least, that's what I told myself.

"Of course." the lady said. She had red hair with dark streaks in it. She was probably in her late 30s. She had a sweater with cat hair all over it. She shut the door. There were white rugs all over the place. But the more noticeable thing was that there were cats. Everywhere. It was like a nightmare where there were all these eyes staring at you constantly.

"Wow. You have a lot of cats." I nodded and almost tripped over a fat black and white cat lying across the ground.

"Sorry about him. He had not moved from that spot since a year ago." she waved her hand as if that was completely normal. Suddenly a thought occurred to me and I looked down at the cat. Oh, good, it's alive. I sighed in relief. It would be so horror movie-ish if there were all these dead cats just lying around. You shouldn't just leave your cats lying around when they're dead. You just don't do stuff like that.

"Oh, you're Ella Martinez, aren't you?" she said. "I'm Miss Simmons. You go to school with my son Jay."

Oh crap.


	5. Chameleon Boy?

**Disclaimer: I would like to disclaim a couple of things at this point of the story:**

***Maximum Ride and everything that goes along with it.**

**YAY! Okay, time to write again!**

**Chapter 4**

I immediately started to do what I do best in situations like this: Babble nonsensically.

"Oh, you're Jay's mom? No way! I mean…I mean, Jay is…he's a cool kid, ya know? Yeah, he…um. Yeah."

Mrs. Simmons smiled. "Oh, thank you, sweetie. I'll get him down here do that you guys can catch up."

"What?" I asked breathlessly. Turns out if you act like a stupid person is more tiring than acting like a smart person.

"Does she remember?" she asked my mom.

I hate when parents do that. When they treat you like they're looking through a glass thing at you and you can't hear what they're saying. But I could totally hear for the record.

"What?" I almost yelled.

"You used to pal around together in preschool." Mom said.

"Oh, that's never come up in conversation before." I said pointedly at my mother. She shrugged. Nice answer, Mom. Thanks for the support.

"Valencia, my cat, Muffins is having terrible leg spasms. Could you check her out." my Mom nodded at Jay's mom. "Oh, Ella, you go say hi to Jay. He never gets visitors because he's so busy with things all the time. He'll enjoy seeing a school buddy."

They walked away, leaving me there. You know that feeling when you're being forced to walk into a room full of hungry lions? You don't? Well, I just found out.

My stomach clenched, but I made myself walk up the stairs as quietly as possible. The upstairs hallway had no cats-visible, at least. There were drawings of ballerinas and flowers all over the wall and a picture of a little girl with bouncy blonde hair and a little boy with oversized glasses and messy brown hair. I was guessing that was Jay because basically that was what he looked like now. His eyes were exactly the same also, giant dark eyes. And then there was this giant picture of a tabby cat next to them, which I guess was like the third child in this family. Ew, that's weird.

My feet made no sound in the hallway. Outside a loud crack of thunder made me jump a little. I breathed and walked forward a little. I saw a doorway on the left side of the hallway. It had a piece of notebook paper that said "Loading" and had a red bar colored in crayon underneath it. It was slightly open so I heard a voice.

"Destroy the force field."

Then a higher pitched voice, "No, don't do it!"

"But we have to." the lower voice said.

"No we don't."

And then it was silent.

Then I heard the low voice say, "I can't be in love with you."

I peeked in through the door. I saw something that was kind of disturbing. Jay was behind a shelf making the figures on top move and say stuff. Okay, this has brought my respect for him down to a whole new level that I did not think was possible to achieve. Ever.

"Yes, but-"

"Um…hi." I walked in. Jay jumped up and hit his head on the top of the shelf with a crack. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to surprise you. Are you alright?"

"Why the heck are you in my house?" he yelled, rubbing his head.

"Your cat was having leg spasms." I said quickly.

"What?" he gave me a confused look.

"My mom's a vet and your cat is like sick or something. I didn't mean to come here on purpose."

"Why are you in my room?"

I thought about that one, then put on a confidant face, "Why were you playing with action figures and giving them voices?" I asked smugly.

"Um…it's…you…" he stammered, his eyes getting wide and scared, "It's extra credit for a book report."

"No it's not." I tilted my head and crossed my arms.

"Okay." he said quietly. And that's when the awkwardness came. I averted my eyes and let my hands fall to my side. He nervously tapped his fingers on his desk. Whenever we breathed it was like the room just got a little bit more anti-social. I think Jay was breathing extra loud just to piss me off.

"Yeah I a…" he trailed off, "I mean…what?"

"I didn't say anything." I replied.

"Oh, I thought you said something. It must have been my mom or something. I think that's her calling me. Don't…don't touch anything." he ran clumsily out of the room and I heard him trip and crash in the hallway.

"Are you okay?" I shouted.

"Disregard the last few seconds." he shouted back.

I sat down in a chair next to his desk. He had all these sketches of people that were pretty good. They were really detailed and I started to recognize people from school. I saw Gary who was actually a girl with long blonde hair and bright green eyes. I immediately recognized Kate. He'd done a good job of portraying her, I must say. Then there were some people that I didn't recognize.

Then I saw a whole pile of Wikipedia pages. Do not touch his stuff. Well, technically this was Wikipedia's stuff so…

What happened next I really shouldn't have done. It was an invasion of privacy and it was bad and wrong. He'd kill me if he knew I was doing this. But, I was on a quest and sometimes you have to do stuff that's not so nice, right? Right?

I picked up the first page. It said "Chameleon" on top. There were pictures of the "highly specialized clade of lizards" whatever that meant. It was all about their eating habits and etymology and evolution.

There was some messy handwriting scrawled next to some of the notes. One said, "try this on Monday". It was next to the section about how some chameleon's could change color. There was a date written next to it from, like three years ago.

I wasn't suspicious anymore. I was almost positive. I had almost come to a final conclusion that I was correct. I mean, most of the time, I'm correct, so I shouldn't have been surprised. But, never had I come to a conclusion so out there and strange.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "Oh my gosh, get out of my room!" he said, pointing at the door.

"Jay! I just looked at the Wikipedia stuff. You can tell me if anything is…" I trailed off.

"No, I can't tell you anything! I don't even know you! I haven't seen you since preschool and now you come back and…get the hell out of my room!"

"I'm so sorry." I said, quickly grabbing a piece of paper. "Here's my number. If you need to tell me something or anything or just talk or whatever in the next couple three weeks-"

"Not good, not good, notgoodnotgoodnotgood." he muttered to himself. "Okay, listen. There is nothing going on."

"Don't say that. I know what's going on because it's going on with me too." I said, feeling a little bit powerful in this situation. Mostly because Jay was leaning against his wall like he was going to feint.

"You…" he paused. "Wait a second, what's going on with _you_?" he looked up at me.

"Um…this is going to take some explaining." I mumbled. "Okay, so I'm 3% yorkie."

"Stop it, that's not funny." he said, with an incredulous look on his face.

"I'm not being funny, I have a tail!" I said.

"No way. Can-"

"I'm not showing you." I rolled my eyes. Even these kind of boys have perverted minds. "Listen, it was grafted into my DNA a really long time ago. And now I'm 3% yorkie. Here look at my canine teeth. I pulled down my lip a little and he gasped.

"Are you sure you're not just, like, a vampire or something?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure vampires don't have tails." I sighed. Why are people so stupid sometimes? I've been trying to figure it out. "Anyway, so I just got this 'heads-up' notice from a guy named Jeb-"

"What kind of name is 'Jeb'?" Jay cocked his eyebrow.

"A weird scientist-y guy kind of name. And, as I was saying, I need to recruit five mutant people to be part of my 'group' of mutants." I said, feeling like an idiot.

"I don't know what you're talking about." he crossed his arms over his skinny chest.

"Yes you DO!" I shook his shoulders a little bit. "I know because I have proof. I've been doing some detective work about you because you were acting all weird in Science class."

"Maybe I just was having a bad day, Sherlock." he replied.

"Yeah but that doesn't explain why you have all this Wikipedia stuff about chameleons on your desk. By the way, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, so that wasn't really a great site to look up stuff."

He opened his mouth to say something but I cut him off. "And it really doesn't explain why Mr. Gabriel, that weird freaky student teacher guy didn't want me to talk to you so he knocked me out." I finished and blew my hair off my face for dramatic effect.

"Wow. Alright." he looked a little hyperventilate-y and really pale as if he'd been running really fast for the whole day. "Okay. Um…I…why do you want _me _to be in your 'group'?" he put the air quotes around 'group'.

"So are you saying it's true and I'm right?" I asked eagerly.

He took a really deep breath. "Yeah, kinda. I guess." he looked to the floor. Before I could stop myself, I was hugging him around his middle.

"Yes! I knew I was right! Thank you thankyouthankyou!" I cried.

"Yeah, okay. Get off me please." he muttered.

"Oh my gosh. I actually found one! Oh my gosh we're gonna save the world! Oh my gosh this is so fantastic! Aaaaaaah!" I finally let go of him. If I was Max, I probably would have said, "Yeah. I knew it." and then walked out with my hair swishing behind me. But, that's not really me, as you can probably guess.

"Yay." Jay said in his dorky voice that I now loved.

"Okay, so…um…do you by any chance know any other mutants?" I smiled.

"Yeah, I go to a secret society called Mutant Teenagers Anonymous." he said sarcastically.

"Whatever. So, I'm guessing you're part…" I wanted to make sure that I had gotten everything absolutely right.

"I'm part chameleon. Like the lizard thing." he whispered. "Now be quiet. Someone's going to hear you."

"Who? There's no one else here." I said. And just so everyone knows, I was utterly and completely right. I had no flaws in my hypothesis. Score one for Ella! Yes!

"Well, there's my mom and your mom." he said.

"Of course, but…wait a sec, your mom doesn't know that you're part lizard."

"Part chameleon." he said. "And no. Does your mom know you're part yorkie?"

"Yeah, of course. She's my mom." I said, then regretted it, looking at his face.

"Well, my mom's a little different. I think it would better if I was 5% cat or something. You know." he said, gesturing to the picture of the cat.

"No offense, but that is a really weird picture."

"I was seven years old! Sue me." he said.

"I was talking about the cat, moron." I scowled. "But now that I'm looking at it…"

"Shut up." he said, but I heard laughter under his voice. Which was a good thing. I want to have a 'group' that loves me like Max does. That would be soooo cool.

"Well, I still think you should tell your mom. It's just something she should know." I said. "Hey, do you have like superpowers or something?"

"Do chameleons have superpowers?" he said, making fun of how it was kind of a stupid question. "Not really."

"I mean, I have really good hearing and my feet are really resilient. Also I have really great hair."

"Okay, well, I don't go near water because I have a few scales on my hands that are only visible when they're wet. I can roll my eyes opposite ways." he demonstrated.

"Ew, freak." I joked.

"And also, I can do this."

And suddenly, Jay disappeared.


	6. Another Visit from Jeb

**Disclaimer: This is the 5****th**** Chapter disclaimer. I would like you to read carefully as to avoid confusion and unwanted side effects. Okay, I do not own anything in this chapter that James Patterson made up or any other author came up with. **

**By the way, I kind of changed the book a little because I just couldn't write about saving the world from global warming. I'm sorry. It would have been torture.**

**Now that that is over with I would like to say that you should read and review. Every time you click the little button at the bottom the Union of Mutants is notified.**

**Okay, that's not really true. But, please read and review please please please.**

**Chapter 5**

Here's what you missed in the Amazing Adventures of Ella and her Quest to find Mutant Teenagers:

Jay just disappeared.

And that's what you missed in the Amazing Adventures of Ella and her Quest to find Mutant Teenagers.

"Oh, you're not serious." I said. "You are not serious! Are you freaking serious?"

"Yep." Jay's voice said. 

"Oh, shut up!" I waved my hand in front of me and hit something.

"Ow." Jay appeared. "That was my nose."

"Yeah. You were invisible!" I hugged him again. "Oh, wow. Okay, we are going to be the most bad ass team of mutants freaks EVER!"

"Actually, I wasn't invisible."

"Yes you were. I just saw you." I said. _Crack, _went the thunder in the distance.

"Nooooo." he said, really annoyingly. "I was just blending in with my surroundings."

"What?"

"So you know how you sometimes can't see chameleons because they blend in with their surroundings?" he replied.

"Yeah. Okay, I just had a big idea in my brain!" I yelled. "You could be called Chameleon Boy!"

"Like Legion of Superheroes?" he looked at me with a weird little smirk on his face. "You watch that show?"

"Only when it's the only thing on TV." I looked at my feet. 

"Cool." he said and looked out the window. His eyes widened. "Oh my…"

"I know. It's a pretty bad storm." I said, hearing thunder rumble loudly.

"That is NOT what I am talking about." he said, pointing. I raised my eyebrows and walked over to the window. When I saw what was out there, I pressed myself up against Jay's wall.

"Oh, okay. Do you know that guy?" I asked him.

"No, I was just wondering why he standing in the middle of a wind storm at night."

"Well, that's a legitimate concern." I replied, peeking out the window. There, in Jay's driveway, holding a clipboard, was none other than Jeb Batchelder. "Mind if I open the window."

"Feel free." he said.

I threw open the window and felt the wind against my face.

"JEB!" I screamed. "GO AWAY!"

He shouted back something that I couldn't hear.

"NO, GET OUT OF MY LIFE!"

He held up the clipboard. I couldn't read any of the writing. "GET IN YOUR CAR AND DRIVE AWAY!"

Suddenly, he took out his phone and punched some numbers into it. Do you think he was calling to order pizza? No, of course, my cell phone started ringing immediately. 

"Did he just call you from out there?" Jay asked.

"Yeah, hold on." I pulled out my phone. It said 'Unknown Name'. Maybe I should call him that now. "WHAT?" I screamed into my phone. 

There was the sound of the wind in the background and then a smooth voice broke through. "Ella, this is Jeb Batchelder."

"No freaking duh, I know who you freaking are." I whispered. I figured I'd gone past the point of treating grownups with respect.

"I see you're with a boy. Is he…?" Jeb trailed off.

"Yeah, he's mutant. Why would I be talking to him if he wasn't?"

Jay tried to grab the phone from me, but I pushed his arms away.

"Good. Oh, Ella I am so very proud of you." his voice sounded like he was smiling.

"Go. Jump. Off. A. Freaking. Cliff." I said, feeling so very proud of myself. "Listen, Jeb, I need you to get away from me and I'll see you at the end of my three weeks. Do not follow me."

"Ella, I have to check on you. Max and her flock are helping to save the world. You can't waste time." 

"How am I wasting time?" I asked. "You know what? Bye." I hung up sharply.

"Ella!" Jay whined. "Why'd you tell him?"

"Because he's my sisters dad and he wants me to help her and her flock save the world from ultimate destruction or something like that." I glared out the window. Jeb was standing there, looking sad. 

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Anyway, so he needs me to find six mutant kids by the end of two weeks and six days."

"Whoa, this is kind of a lot to process." Jay sank down against the wall.

"Oh, good, Jeb's leaving. _That's right. Go away you mean, stupid, weird, stupid guy._"

Jay stared at me. What? I can't help it if my life is kind of spiraling out of control so I can't think of proper swear words to say at Jeb.

"So, if I were part of your…group thing. What exactly would I have to do? Fundraising for the rainforest?" Jay asked.

"No, not really. Have you heard of the School?" I asked. Jay's face paled considerably and he started to quiver a little bit.

"No," he said. "I mean I've probably heard of it, but you know…" 

"Yes, I think you know what it is." I narrowed my eyes at him.

"No. I. Don't." his answer was firm and he stood up to full height.

"Well, anyway, they're basically trying to combine human DNA with animal DNA so that we're these things called 'hybrids'. Like you're a chameleon hybrid and I'm a yorkie hybrid. And they made us for their own personal enjoyment or something and now our DNA is all screwed up. 

"Okay, so these scientist guys who are called 'whitecoats' because they wear white coats, they're doing all these experiments and so, um…yeah. I think that's it." I thought about it for a moment then decided that I would think of anything else that I should tell Jay later.

"Oh, that's bad." Jay said, but I could totally tell that he knew all of this and it was bugging the heck out of me. I mean, we were basically best friends now, right? Because he was mutant and everything. So we were best friends and everything and he wouldn't even tell me about how he knew all of this and everything. UGH! **(and everything)**

"Yeah. Okay, do you have a cell phone?" I asked.

"Yeah." he said.

"Give me your number."

He did. I plugged it into my phone. What? Did you think I was actually going to tell you his phone number? Then if you were a whitecoat, you could call him. Or if you were a crazy person you could call him and be all like, "You have seven days to live." That's kind of stupid of me to give you his number, no offenses to reader.

"You give me yours." he said.

And of course, I did. But see above reasoning if you're wondering why I'm not telling you. 

"Cool." he kind of breathed. "So…"

"If you ever need to talk or anything…I don't like too far away." I said. Suddenly, I saw a giant bolt of lightning. You know when you see lightning and then it's really quiet and you just know that there's going to be this giant BOOM and you're going to flip out? 

"Cover you ears." my hands immediately went up to my sensitive ears. Jay tentatively put his fingers over his. I heard the obnoxious crack through my hands. We both jumped a little.

"Ella!" my mom's voice called up the stairs. "Time to go, sweetie!"

I looked over at Jay, warily. "I'LL BE RIGHT DOWN, MOM!" I shouted, causing Jay to cover his ears once again. "Would you mind…looking around? If you see anyone that's acting fishy…or lizardy, or horsey, or…cantaloupey-"

"Cantaloupe is not an animal. It's a fruit." Jay grinned.

"Cantaloupe is a fruit? Cantaloupe? Cantaloupe." I murmured. "Now it doesn't even sound like a word." I really didn't know that cantaloupe was a fruit. OH WAIT! Cantaloupe/ Antelope! That must be what I was thinking. Antelope not Cantaloupe, stupid!

"Antelope is not a fruit, right?" I asked.

"Nope, I don't think so." Jay said. 

"Good. Alright, see you in school tomorrow." I said.

"That is the first time someone has said that to me in a non-threatening way." he grinned like a dork.

"Don't make this weird." I said, laughing.

"Sorry." he pushed me out the door of his room. "I have to go back to playing with my action figures. Next time you're here and we're not trying to save the world, you can play too."

"Jay, that is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me."

We both grinned like dorks.

One mutant down. Five to go. _Oh boy._


	7. Dogs, Idiots, and Babysitters

**DISCLAIMER: Okay, for some reason the last chapter was all underlined. Why does it do that? It made it hard to read! ****L**** Anyway, I'm in a good mood today, so I'm going to write a chapter. I DON'T OWN MAXIMUM RIDE OR ANY OF IT'S PEOPLE! SUCK ON THAT!**

Chapter 7

So basically, I think I'm doing pretty good with this whole mutant search. I mean what are the odds that I would find a kid who had animal DNA programmed into his bloodstream in my Science class?

Now it's Friday afternoon and I feel anticlimactic. I mean I had this exciting night last night and now I'm flopped on my couch flipping through channels like if I press the button enough times, a good show will come on. Unfortunately, my yorkie skillz do not include creating a good TV program to watch on a boring Friday night. Screw you white coats.

Finally, I settled on What Not to Wear, that show on TLC, where these people come up to you and say, "Hey, your fashion sense SUCKS! Here's $5,000! Spend it on clothing that's cool instead of lame!"

"Ella, I have another call about the parrot down the street. Do you want to come?" my mom asked while she put on her coat. It was still raining a little bit.

"If you see a mutant kid, call me." I said and turned to my side on the couch.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed." the door closed and I heard her locking it.

I grabbed my cell phone and typed on my keyboard to Carlos. "Hi, wats up?"

I waited for the dinging sound opened the message. "Nm." You can probably tell how deep and intellectual our texts are.

"Kewl." I typed back.

_DING! _"Yep. Did u finish the paper 4 English?"

Ugh. No mention of work, please. I already have so much stuff going on. You know, that's why I'm…lying on my couch…watching What Not to Wear…and texting. Face palm.

"Nope. U?"

_DING! _"Yea, did it on grapes of rath."

"Eh…U spelled the name wrong, smart 1." I typed back. Now this is the definition of boring.

_DING! _"oh. Since wen do u care about spelling?"

"U spelled when wrong." I typed, laughing to myself.

_DING! _"sue me. I gotta go."

"Y?" I asked.

_DING! _"idk. gtg. see ya later."

Well, that was a little…rude? Carlos and I have been friends since we were in second grade and he was on crutches because of a broken leg. Someone tripped him and I helped him up and then some other stuff happened and basically we somehow became friends along the way. He's on the short side and a little pudgy with curly black hair and dark eyes. Plus, he's always wearing dorky clothing, so he gets teased a lot by the guys. I get teased a lot by the girls though, so that's one of the things that keeps us close. Carlos is incapable of telling lies and never says anything offensive. That was why it was bugging me how abrupt he was about it.

The girl on TV was crying because she didn't want to give away her crappy clothing. Oh boo hoo, you have 5,000 big ones, give it a rest.

"I'm alone in my house!" I sang to the ceiling. I don't know why I do stuff like that. It's just a habit. Magnolia trotted over, probably wondering about my mental sanity.

"Me too, girl." I said, rubbing her head between the ears. She shook her leg. "Why do dogs do that?"

"I don't know."

I jumped off the couch, my ears perking up. Literally. "H-hello?" There was no sound. Oh, this is just too perfect. This always happens in the horror movies. The murderers not going to come out with his hands in the air, he's gonna shoot me or stick a knife through my back. "Who's THERE?" I shrieked.

"Um…me?"

There it was again. Same voice. It was like an teenage girl's voice, I guess. Not really that threatening sounding, but still, teenage girls are known to be very violent and scandalous, right?

"Wait, can you hear me?"

"YES!" I cried, grabbing the remote and holding it like a sword.

"Alright, well settle down."

"I'M CALLING MY…" I trailed off. I was going to say my mom, but I don't think that would be very threatening. "THE POLICE!"

"You're calling the police? I don't think they'll care."

Okay, this was officially the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I felt cold all over. If someone killed me right now, no one would know who it was because my mom would get home after the murderer was long gone. Why didn't I go with her?

"Please don't kill me." I whimpered.

"I'd rather not stand up right now actually. My back legs are real sore from a the walk the other day."

What? "Where are you?"

"Right here."

"Where?"

"Are you blind?"

"NO!" I backed up against the wall behind me.

"Look down a little. Just a little." I obeyed. "There we go."

"THE ONLY THING I SEE IS MY DOG!" No answer. "Hello?" I looked back at my dog. "No freakin' way." I leaned down next to her. "Magnolia."

"Yes?" the voice said.

Oh, crap. "Am I…are you…is my dog talking to me."

"I think so. I mean, you can hear me." Magnolia…um…said?

"Is this my power? Am I…like, the dog whisperer?" I put my hand on her back.

"That show bores me." Magnolia buried her face in her paws.

"Wait, but you're not moving your mouth or anything." I said.

"I guess you're just reading my thoughts."

"No freakin' way." I hissed.

"You said that a minute ago."

"I know. Because there's no freakin' way that I can talk to my dog without being mentally insane. Well, that explains things! I'm probably just mentally ill. Yeah, that's it."

There was silence. "Nope, that's not it."

"How would you know?" I shouted. "I gotta text someone."

"Can I have a phone? Why do only humans get phones. I have friends too. Gary the German Shepard down the street is sexy."

"No. You…you can't have a phone. You're a dog. Dog's don't have phones." I typed in the number.

"_Humans don't talk to dogs." _Magnolia pawed at my leg. I stuck my tongue out at her and started my message.

"jay i'm talking 2 my dog. i feel crazy. can u come over?" typed and frantically waited.

"Oh, who's Jay? Is he that boy who's house you went over last night? Is he cute?"

"Magnolia, shut your…mind or whatever." I tapped my foot. "He's not…never mind." I said.

"Can you ask if he has any young cute dogs?" Magnolia asked.

"No, he's a cat person." I said.

"That JERK! I need a partner. I don't have anyone to share my food with."

"Too much info." I said, looking out the window. "Can you be good while he's here? Don't talk."

"No promises." Magnolia trotted over to a pillow, circled a few times and lay down.

Suddenly, I saw a figure running across my front lawn, tripping over his shoe lace, falling. Two boys were following him and they lifted him off the ground by his arms. I threw open the door, roughly. "Jay!" I yelled.

"Hey, Ella. Sorry. I attracted attention." he pointed to the boys.

"That's okay. Can you guys let him go? I really need to talk to him." I asked.

The boys looked confused. "Uh…you're that chick, Ella, right?"

"Yes. I. Am." I said, standing up straight.

"You're the one who fell in the lake on the field trip last year?"

My posture disappeared. "Yeah." I murmured.

"This is just _too_ perfect." the shorter of the boys said, whacking Jay in the back of the head. "You two, together. It's perfect."

"Hey. Don't do that." I said, shoving the guy back a little.

"Oh, sorry. It was an accident." He pushed Jay to the taller idiot. Who pushed him back to the shorter idiot. Who pushed him back and so on.

"Guys! Stop it!" I shouted. They did not obey. I hated guys like this. "You guys." I raised my fist and punched Short Idiot in the arm. He turned around.

"Wow. This one's tough." Tall Idiot said, laughing a little. Short Idiot pushed Jay over to Tall Idiot, who held him by his elbows. Jay struggled, but the guy had like 40 pounds at least on him.

"You guys are big fat jerks." I said and kicked Tall Idiot in the shins, grabbed Jay's arm and made a mad dash for my house. I closed the door behind me, quickly. "What's their problem?" I checked out the window. They were walking away, defeated.

"I…have no idea." Jay breathed and sat down on the couch.

"He's skinny, but pretty cute." Magnolia's voice said from behind the couch.

"Shut up!" I shouted at her.

"What?" Jay asked me, quizzically.

"I'll tell you in a minute." I muttered, unhappily.

"Hey," he put his arm on my shoulder. "Thanks for that." he smirked.

"No problem. Jerks like that are just…_jerks_." I took his coat and threw it over next to the coat rack.

"Yeah, I know. So, what is it that you were going to tell me?" he asked.

"Oh, I can talk to dogs. It's like…crazy." I said. Watch, "Magnolia, get out here."

"But I don't want to. I'm tired."

I groaned. "She says she's tired." Jay raised an eyebrow. "Don't do that. Magnolia now!"

She lazily picked herself up and traipsed over to me.

"See I got her to come!" I said.

"Oh, do you want a medal?" Magnolia asked sarcastic.

"Now she's being all sardonic." I said to Jay, who looked at me weird. "Magnolia, um bark."

Luckily she did. "SEE?" I cried.

"Wow, that was impressive." Jay said.

"Well, I could do without the sarcasm." I crossed my arms defensively.

"Ask her what she thinks about Global Warming." Jay murmured.

"What's that?" Magnolia crinkled her eyes.

"She doesn't know what that is." I said, sheepishly. "Magnolia…um…oh! Go pick up my phone."

She rolled her eyes as much as a dog can, but walked over and picked it up with her mouth. Jay's eyes widened a little. "Now type in a message and send it to Jay." I said.

"My paws aren't going to type legibly and I can't spell worth crap." Magnolia said, but dropped the phone and pushed her claws on the buttons and then pressed the button in the corner.

I practically cheered when Jay's phone vibrated in his pocket. He reached into his pocket and whipped it out.

"Magnolia says: Hj mlad ffffffffffjjjjjjjt fff k! bue." he looked up at me. "Oh my gosh. Your dog just texted me."

"MY DOG JUST TEXTED YOU!" I shrieked and we jumped up and down like five year olds screaming exchanging yells of, "That is SO cool!" and "WHOA!"

Finally we sat down on the couch and just stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, I started giggling. "Hey you know. That's never going to help us in the middle of a battle."

"You know, maybe one of the whitecoats has a pet dog." Jay suggest, a laugh under his voice.

"Not likely." I rolled over and looked at him.

"You might be right." he put his hands under his head and looked at me.

"You know, we're wasting time." I said.

"Yeah. But, I haven't noticed anyone cantaloupey, yet." he said.

""Me neither. But there's this little girl who lives down the street from me named Zendi." I paused. "And the other day, she was acting…slightly cantaloupey. Just slightly."

"Oh, really?" Jay asked, not looking at me completely.

"Yeah." I sighed, getting serious. "I mean, she asked me I'd ever shoot a snake. Did you know they blow up if you shoot them?"

"No, I missed that lesson during Science class."

"Me too." I said. "She said she would be sorry for the snake or something."

"That _is _cantaloupey." Jay replied, frowning slightly. "Okay, so maybe, we should investigate. Do you think she'll ever need a babysitter or something?"

"Yeah. I guess she would at some point." I nodded. "We could both do it. I did that Red Cross thingy last year." I said.

"Inspiring." Jay agreed. "Let's ask her."

"Today?" I asked. He nodded. "But What Not to Wear is on!" I whined.

"I think that might be able to wait." he said sitting up. I sat up quickly.

"Jay? Are you suggesting that there is something more important than watching What Not to Wear? Unheard of."

"No, not at all. But it's probably over anyway." he pointed to the clock, which told me that he was correct.

"Darn. Fine. Let's go."

We got to Zendi's house pretty quickly and Jay knocked on the door. A woman with dark hair answered.

"Hello, may I help you?" she asked. Then she saw me. "Ah…Ella! Darling, you have grown so much. And who is this strapping young man?"

Jay pulled on his graphic t-shirt that had the Legion of Superheroes on it. He shook Ms. Zendi's Mom's hand. "Jay Simmons. I'm Ella's friend."

"Nice to meet you. So, what are you two up to?" she asked.

"We just wanted to know if Zendi needed to have a baby sitter in the next two weeks and five days."

"Well, I'm going out on Thursday…but she has a brother." she explained.

"I'M GOING OUT ON THURSDAY!" Zendi's brother, Hendrix yelled.

"WHERE?" Zendi's mom shouted.

Hendrix ran downstairs. Hendrix was kind of short and weedy looking with giant glasses and messy brown hair. "With my new girlfriend, Amanda." he nodded, smugly.

"_You_ have a _girlfriend_?" Jay asked. "_How_?"

"You got a problem with it, nerd?" Hendrix put his hands on his hips.

"No." Jay said quietly. I nudged him.

"Thanks, Hendrix." I sighed.

"Would you guys mind-"

"No, we can watch Zendi. We both have training." I blurted out.

"Well actually…" Jay said.

"We both have training." I repeated.

And that is how Jay and I got our first job as babysitter of a possible-maybe-not exactly mutant child.

**Please read and review! It makes people so very happy. It makes Ella get awesomer. It makes Jay get nerdier. It makes Hendrix get creepier. PLEASE REVIEW SOON! **


	8. Babysitting Zendi Part One

**Disclaimer: This disclaimer would love to say something to you. It likes peanuts and reviews. BTW, James Patterson owns everything except my characters. Okay, cool. Have a cantaloupey day.**

Okay, so listen, how do you get ready to baby sit someone that you think might be a mutant? I had no idea until I made this awesome list. Check it out if you're dealing with something similar!

**How to Get Ready For a Babysitting Job if you Suspect That Your Babysittee Might Be A Mutant In 10 Easy Steps**

1. Put on an orange shirt that says "ACTING CENTER 2007" and comfortable running shorts.

2. Tie your hair up into a ponytail.

3. Look in your mirror. See that you look bad in orange and running shorts and ponytails make your head look misshapen. Change into a graphic t-shirt that says "PEACE" and denim shorts. Let your hair down and put a pink clip in to tie back your bangs. Love it.

4. Go downstairs and then run back upstairs because you forgot your cell phone.

5. Realize that your cell phone is in the living room on the floor covered in dog slobber.

6. Decide that you don't really need a cell phone after all.

7. Pack a bag. Bring a hair brush, some construction paper and markers, crayons, dolls (that I don't use anymore, no matter what Mom says), scrunchies, some movies that are okay for kids (as in, NOT Superbad, even if that movie is sooo good), story books, band-aids, a blanket, one inappropriate movie for _when Zendi falls asleep and I'm bored_, and as many pages as I could find on the internet about mutant people (by the way, not all mutants are green people, internet! Some of the pages I visited had no idea what they were talking about.)

8. Tell your Mom that you think you found another mutant maybe.

9. Walk out to the bottom of your driveway.

10. Wait for Jay to come running down the street, saying he's sorry he's late but he tripped and fell down some stairs on the way here.

"Are you okay?" I asked. His face looked fine. I mean, that's not what I meant…I mean…Ugh. His arms looked beat up and his knees were all bloody.

"Yeah I think." he hesitated, he looked nervous and jittery.

"You're lying to me." I said.

"No, I really think I'm okay." he said.

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean, you didn't fall down the stairs, did you?" I narrowed my eyes and we started walking.

His eyes darted around quickly and he breathed out. "_Okay_, someone pushed me down some stairs. It's not a big deal, okay?"

I just looked at him incredulously, whatever that means. Why did he let people do stuff like that to him?

"Why do you let people do stuff like that to you?" I asked.

"I don't. I didn't _let _him push me down the stairs. He just _did_." Jay walked ahead of me.

"That's not what I meant." I said. "Anyway," Ella's tip of the Day: If a conversation gets awkward, take an easy approach and veer away from that conversation. "Did you bring anything?"

He raised the bag in his hands, obviously grateful to have steered clear of talking about that. "Just some normal stuff. Movies and stuff."

"Did you bring a movie for when Zendi's asleep and you're bored?" I asked.

"Am I a bad babysitter if I say yes?" he asked, grinning at me.

"Yes, but I'm also a bad babysitter then, because I brought Superbad for when she falls asleep." I said.

"You're kidding." he said, scratching his head, skeptically.

"Why? It's a good movie." I protested.

"Oh, I know. I brought it too."

"Cool. We can watch your version and my version and see how they compare." I smirked.

"Mine is so much better." he said.

"Michael Cera looks cuter in mine." I said.

"Well, mine's more epic." he said.

"There's no way that's true because mine must be more epic than yours. Girls' copies of movies are just generally better than boys'." I shrugged.

We stopped walking. "We're here." I said.

"I pray that in this house there will be a small mutant girl who has awesome powers and can kick ass harder than both of us put together. And also, please make Ella realize that my version of Superbad is better than hers." Jay closed his eyes and looked up to the sky.

"And also please let Jay's version of Superbad suck. And also make Zendi go to bed early so that we can watch Superbad twice." I added.

"Amen." Jay said. And we walked inside.

Zendi's house is really nice inside. There's a giant chandelier above your head when you first walk in. I always feel like the chandelier is going to crash down upon the unsuspecting visitors so I ran inside, through the front hallways quickly and motioned to Jay to do the same.

Mrs. Jones (Zendi's Mom) had walked into another room and we were just standing there, waiting for Zendi to come bouncing through the hallways.

"Hey, do you think they have a butler?" Jay asked looking around.

"Possibly." I considered it.

"He's probably evil." Jay said.

"Thanks, Jay." I sighed.

"What? I think he's probably evil."

"Uh…why?" I raised my eyebrows.

"It just seems…justifiable." he nodded.

"No, it doesn't." I shot back. "And don't say that in front of Zendi. She'll have nightmares and we won't get to watch Superbad."

"Oh, horror of horrors." Jay replied. Tonight he was wearing a blue shirt that said, "I TRIP UP STAIRS" on it. What. A. Dork. Unfortunately, he had proved this to be wrong because instead of tripping up stairs, today he had been _pushed down _stairs. Haha, I make myself laugh.

"Yeah."

Mrs. Jones had sent Jay to the bathroom when he first got here so that he could wash blood off his legs and arms. Just cause, you know, it was kinda gross.

He looked much better now. Like, as in, not bloody.

Mrs. Jones walked in, he heels clicking loudly on the shiny floor. "You guy are really doing me a favor. Just so you know, Hendrix, isn't leaving the house for twenty minutes. I pay you extra." she said absentmindedly.

"Ah, twenty minutes is no big deal, Mrs. Jones." I said.

"Yes, but dear…Hendrix is…" she trailed.

"Oh, okay. So you'll be home at-"

"Midnight…1:00 at the latest." she nodded. I've left you a list of numbers and information on the counter. Zendi's bedtime is 8:00. Hendrix will be home at 10:00 at the latest, but he'll probably just go to bed. I would doubt that he'll give you any trouble." she thought for a second. "If he does, please call me."

"Yeah. Got it." Jay said.

"You kids are lifesavers. Thanks a ton." she grabbed her bag and gave us a smile.

"Bye." I waved from the door and then closed it behind her.

"So…what now?" Jay asked.

"Well, we should probably start investigating." I said.

"We should actually check in on the kid we're babysitting first, you know?" he looked over at me.

"Good idea." I sighed. I wanted to know for sure that there was something up with Zendi. I wanted to be the Encyclopedia Brown for mutants.

It didn't take long to find Zendi, considering she ran right up to me and wrapped her arms around my leg. "Hi, Ella."

"Hey, Zendi." I said.

"Um…hi." Jay said awkwardly.

"Who are you?" Zendi asked, looking up from her position.

"Jay. I'm Ella's friend." he said.

Zendi reached up and pulled my hand until I leaned down to her level.

"What's up?" I wondered.

"Are you two gonna make out in front of me?" she whispered. I jumped up and looked at Jay frantically.

"Uh…no. I mean, we're not…who wants to color?" I grabbed my bag.

"Okay, sure." Zendi stood up and pulled the edge of her turtleneck. She ran down the hall and we followed her.

"What did she ask you." Jay asked, following my quick steps.

"Nothing. I mean, something. But, it's weird. So, no, she said nothing." I decided and walked into the living room. An orangey glow was cast across the floor from a lamp on a side table. I pulled out some crayons and markers and construction paper out of my bag and set them on the ground.

I sat there awkwardly with her staring at me and Jay intently.

"Um…" I trailed off.

"What's your favorite animal?" Jay asked, scooting closer to Zendi.

"Snake." she said, then thought about it. "No. Maybe a puppy."

"Cool." Jay said, and handed her some crayons. "But I've never heard of those animals. Are you sure they're real?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow. I shot him a weirded out look.

"Yes." Zendi said with a smile.

"_I don't think so._" Jay said.

"Jay, there are such things as a snake and a puppy. I know for fact." she crossed her arms, looking confused.

"I still don't believe you." he said, looking defiant. What was he getting at?

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well, they are. You are just stupid if you don't know that." she laughed.

"It might help if you drew a picture or something of these 'animals'." he put air quotes around 'animals'.

"Fine. But you guys have to leave the room because what if I mess up? Then Jay will never know what a snake and a puppy looks like." she decided, waving her hand at us.

I slowly walked out and closed the door behind us. Then I pushed Jay against the wall.

"Whoa. Where did that come from?" I hissed.

"I don't know. I think I'm just really good at this." he shrugged.

I let go of him and leaned against the wall. "Of course. Mr. Perfect has little kids falling at his feet." I said.

He breathed out. "Yeah, well, Mr. Perfect also has people pushing him down stairs." he glanced over at me.

"Mr. Perfect is a wimp who won't stand up to idiots or anything." I said.

"Who are we talking about again?" Jay asked.

"You, dumbass." I whispered so that Zendi wouldn't hear me swearing.

It got really quiet when suddenly a giant sound ran through the house and made me jump.

"Sorry!" yelled a voice from upstairs. Then 'Forever Young' turned on, loudly enough that we could hear it.

"Wow, that kid has got some issues." Jay looked at the ceiling, which was vibrating from the sound.

"He's getting ready for his date." I reminded him.

"That is not how you get ready for a date." Jay laughed.

"How would you know?" I narrowed my eyes.

We stared at the wall on the other side of the hall for a few minutes.

"Kay, you can come in now!" Zendi yelled.

"Ready to learn what a snake and a puppy look like, Jay?" I asked.

"Yes." he said.

Zendi was pointing to a misshapen demonic looking dog with massive blue eyes and a tongue bigger than it's stomach. "This is a puppy."

"Ohhhh! Now I remember those things." Jay said, smacking his forehead.

"And this is a snake." she pointed to a squiggly line that was bright green.

"Wow, that's good artwork." Jay picked up her drawing and lying on the ground. She lay down next to him and they both looked at it.

"Nice detail." he nodded.

"Thanks. The green on the snake is my favorite." she said.

"Yeah, same here."

I was grateful that Jay was so good with kids. It wouldn't have been good if we were both awkward with children.

After that, it was about 6:00. I figured we could pop in a movie for her to watch and go investigate. She seemed excited, but already had a movie picked out. She grabbed Jay's hand and led him over to the couch. He sat down while she rummaged through a basket with old movies in it.

"Can we watch this?" she asked, holding up a cassette.

"Funny Girl? You like that kind of movie?" I raised my eyebrows. She nodded enthusiastically. I was kind of expecting her to pull out Barbie and Friends, not a Barbara Streisand movie. "Well, alright. I'll get it set up."

I hadn't used a tape like this before. I shoved on it, but it wouldn't go in. It like went in the quarter of a way, but then it wouldn't go in the whole way. Old DVDs are so annoying.

Jay walked up behind me, turned the tape around and I realized that if you turn the tape around it goes in and you don't need to shove.

"Interesting." I said, smirking.

"I'll stay with her and watch the movie. You go…search for stuff that would indicate, ya know, weirdness." Jay said and sat down next to Zendi. She smiled and leaned against him. It was very cute.

"I have to go check on something. I'll be back in a flash." I said.

"Okay." Zendi said.

When I got into the hallway, I felt a little disoriented. I didn't know which way was the stairs to go up. I kind of just paced around until I saw an elevator. I would love to have an elevator in my house. I would just ride up and down all day.

I pressed the button and it dinged and opened. There was red carpet on the ground and shiny gold walls. Sheesh, Zendi's mom must do some business down at the editing company.

There were a few buttons inside. The bottom one said '1', the next one said '2' and it went up to 4. I think '1' was the basement though.

Suddenly I heard feet running down the hallway and then Jay appeared, looking out of breath.

"You're supposed to stay! Is the movie that girly?" I asked.

"Nope, Zendi said that I should come with you because you could get lost in a house like this. She said you'd get scared without me." he grinned evilly.

"Yeah. If there's any monsters in the house, no using me as a shield." I pulled him in to the elevator.

"Did Hendrix leave yet?" he pushed the '3' button.

I listened for Forever Young, but didn't hear anything. "I guess he left for his date." I said.

"I still don't know how he got a girlfriend." Jay complained as I felt the weird rising sensation in my stomach.

"Jealous?" I raised my eyebrows.

"No way." he said.

We rose higher in silence.

Suddenly, I felt the elevator jerk to a stop.

"What'd going on?" I asked, when the doors didn't open. Next went the lights and then we were standing in the dark.

I flipped out. "NO! Jay, it just stopped! We're going to be in here forever and ever! What if we die in here?" I hyperventilated.

"Okay, okay." I heard him knocking on the elevator door.

"Don't do that!" I found his arm and latch myself onto him. "How is this possible?"

"We just might have a power outage or something. Just…hold on." he said. I whimpered and stood, trying not to move. I don't have great vision at night. I think dog's are supposed to, but the 3% that I have in me apparently does not.

I was close to having a nervous breakdown when the lights flickered on and the door opened. I ran out into the light of the new hallway.

"Thank God!" I shrieked and pressed myself to a wall. Jay ran out too. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. It just came back on." he whispered.

"Why were you so calm?" I breathed.

"You think I haven't been locked in dark closets before? The only thing I was worried about was whether there was enough air in there."

"Okay, so…what should we be looking for?" Jay asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we should find Zendi's room?"

"Yeah. That'd be a good start." Jay said.

We looked through all the rooms upstairs, but couldn't find a room that looked little girlish. At one point, we found what I think might have been her mom's room. It was all feng shui. There were dim lamps and a few unlit candles. Instead of chairs, there were big pillows that I really had to strain myself to refrain from jumping on them. There was some relaxing music playing in the background. I think it was Egyptian or something like that. I started to walk in, but Jay put his hand in front of me.

"Wait." he narrowed his eyes. "What if there's lasers all over the floor and if you touch one, you'll die?" he asked, in all seriousness. I glanced over at him. He glanced over at me.

I hesitated. I was about to say something along the lines of 'are you crazy?' but instead I gave in. "Good point."

He stepped carefully into the rooms and then brought his other foot to that spot. Then he repeated this until he was across the room. "Okay, your turn."

I skipped across the room, making sure to touch every possible spot of floor that I could. He winced, but realized that there were no lasers on the ground. "Good thing you pointed out the lasers, Jay, or else I might be dead right now."

"Shut up." he murmured. "Now, if I were a mom…"

"Wow, that's something I never want to hear come out of your mouth again." I said.

"Where would I keep stuff about my mutant daughter."

"My mom keeps it in her mind." I said,

"Well, let's hope her mom doesn't do that also."

Suddenly, I heard a voice from the doorway. "Dudes, what are you doing in my mom's room?"

Hendrix was still home? I thought he had a date. Well, this was going to make this a little harder than I wanted it to be.

**Hope you liked this chapter! Please review so that I write more. If you have any ideas as to what should happen next tell me. And if you have an idea for a mutant person, that's be great to. Just post it with the name and the looks and I'm come up with the rest. Cool? Cool. Okay, maybe I'll post another chapter today. KEEP ON READING AND REVIEWING! There's a little button below that just loves being clicked. Don't make it unhappy! **


	9. Family Fun Diner

**Okay, guys…here it goes. I'M REALLY SUPER-DUPER, UNBELIEVABLY, INDUBITABLY, SO SO SO SO SORRY. I haven't updated for so long. **

**And the thing is, I have no excuse except for writer's block and laziness. I've had plenty of time on my hands lately, but no inspiration. No "ah-ha" moment. **

**NOTHING. **

**I can't believe this, but I'm finally back on track with this story. I hope. I promise to really try to get updates up as quickly as possible. I mean, I love writing this story, so I really hope that I can finish it. **

**I really am sorry. But, on the bright side, I'm back with a new chapter. And I really hope you like it (and review it) because that would really make me happy. **

**Okay, I'm going to stop boring you with my annoying apologies and just start the stuff that you actually clicked on this for. **

**Disclaimer: DISCLAIMER OF PAGE! Please regard this disclaimer because it is of great importance. I don't own Maximum Ride. It is James Patterson's. K? Got it? Good. **

I whipped around and saw Hendrix standing in the doorway. He was holding a yellow Little Tikes bat in his hand.

"I…could ask YOU the same question." Jay said.

"What the heck are you talking about? This is MY mom's room. I can go in it whenever I want." Hendrix narrowed his eyes and began closing in on us with the bat.

"Whoa. Calm down." I said, backing up into the wall behind me. "I'm pretty sure the guys at Little Tikes™ did NOT intend for you to use that bat for violent purposes."

"GET OUT." Hendrix said. I don't think I've ever heard someone so unthreatening-looking sound so threatening.

"Okay, bye!" Jay said and started to run. I grabbed his arm.

"Hold on. We just need to know more about your sister." I said. Wow, I was proud of myself. Standing up in the face of a bat made for toddlers being wielded by a guy who looks like a young version of the characters from _Revenge of the Nerds_. Oh dear God, what has my life come to?

Hendrix's face went completely blank. I grinned; I thought I'd struck something and that he was going to tell us more about Zendi, so that I could add another mutant to my flock-ish thing.

Instead, he hit me with the bat.

I blacked out to the sound of Jay and Hendrix yelling at each other.

I woke up on some grass with Jay sitting over me and the left side of my face tingling and my head pounding.

"What happened?" I asked, groggily.

"Well, Hendrix made me leave the house so I carried you all the way here but you were heavy and my arms got tired so I decided to slap you so that you'd wake up." he sat back next to me.

I looked around. We were only a few paces away from Zendi and Hendrix's house.

"Are you kidding me? You couldn't have carried me down the street to my house."

"No. Have you ever seen a chameleon? We have really skinny arms." Jay said, showing me his arms.

"Okay, who's _we_?" I asked.

"My chameleon brethren and I."

"Of course. Okay, well, what are we going to do now?" I said. "I mean, really. This sort of _sucks._ I don't want to have to worry about getting hit with a bat by a senile nerd. I just want my life to be normal again."

"Whoa, Ella. Don't go all cliché on me. It's no big deal." Jay said. His glasses were crooked, which made him look sort of eccentric.

"What time is it?" I asked, sitting up.

Jay checked his watch. "About 8:30. Let's go do something."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm bored, let's go somewhere and figure this thing out." he pulled me to my feet.

I wobbled slightly. "Well, okay…but my mom is expecting me back by 1:00am at the latest."

"No worries. My bed time is 10:00."

We were at the Family Fun Diner, where it claims to be family friendly, and yet there it contains a bunch of fat drunk guys sitting at a bar, yelling at a television. The set-up was all kinds of tacky with multicolored geometrical designs along the wall and circular windows.

"This place is…" I struggled to find the right word.

"Completely kitschy?" Jay said, pushing his glasses up further on his nose. "I know. But my cousin works here, so maybe we can get free stuff."

"Oh…cool."

We got seated at a bright red booth with a fluorescent light bulb over it. The waitress slammed down two Kiddie menus, flipped us the bird, and left.

"What was that all about?" I said.

"That was Kathryn. Her boyfriend breaks up with her every other day and she doesn't take it well." Jay said, apologetically.

"I can see that." I sighed.

"I'll be right back. I'm going to see if my cousin's shift is over." Jay jumped up.

"Okay." I said.

I sat and looked at the Kiddie menu, waiting for Jay to return. Someone had already scribbled all over it in green marker, so I kind of felt like I had stolen this from some poor kid with a green marker. In the back of my mind was all the crap about finding four more mutated kids in less than two weeks. It was like when you have a paper due, but you're procrastinating. But way worse. Suddenly I heard the door to the restaurant open loudly and I saw a girl with light brown hair wearing a revealing dress run down the hallway into the bathroom and covering her eyes. It was more girls burst in after her, looking much like two frazzled Barbie dolls."Erma! Have you seen our friend, Kate? She's got on a black strapless number-""Totally scandalous." the other one interjected."And we're trying to find her." I made a split second decision in that second. One of the split second decisions where you're not really sure if you're doing the right thing but you don't exactly think it's the wrong thing either. "I haven't seen her." "Oh."They were about to move on. That's when I realized that since I was kind of feeling more powerful these days, I should probably tell them something."Hey! Guys. My name is Ella, not Erma." "Kay." said Barbie twin 1."Let's go look at the mall." Barbie twin 2 suggested, even though the mall was on the other side of town and there was no legitimate reasoning to how Kate would have gotten herself there."Sounds good." Barbie twin 1 said excitedly. They left. I sat in my chair for a few seconds and just blinked a few times. I was trying to decide what to do. I hate Kate. I mean, I _really _hate Kate. But, in a way, I kind of cared about her…

Just kidding, I just really wanted to know what the heck was going on. That probably sounds really self-centered and cruel, but really, we're talking about the same girl who "accidentally" stepped on my 1st place art sculpture, just because it was mine.

I pushed the door to the bathroom open and looked around. At first, I didn't see any feet under the stall doors, which made me feel like maybe I was insane and stalkerish. But then I heard a sob and realized that no, I was only stalkerish.

I tried to figure out what to say. "Uh…hey, um…Kate?"

I heard a gasp. "Who is that?"

"Ella Martinez."

"Ohmygawd, get the hell out of here!" she sniffled.

I paused. Maybe I should've just left, but I didn't.

I heard a pause in her crying. "Are you still in here?"

"Um…no…?" I said.

"OHMYGAWD!" she shrieked. The sobs started again, even more hysterical than before.

"Kate," I said, trying to get her attention. "Kate…Kate!…Kate…KATE."

"What? What could you possibly want? I'm going to kill you if you don't leave. No, I'm literally going to take out a gun and shoot your brains out if you don't get out of this bathroom and leave me alone." she said.

Yeah, our conversation? Totally awesome.

"Kate, do you have a gun?"

"SHUT UP. You're a loser. You're such a freakin' loser and a freak and you have no friends and everyone freakin' hates you! And you're short and freakin' ugly! And no freakin' boy will ever freakin' date you…and…and…" she started panting. Insulting me takes a lot out of a girl.

"Do you feel any better, now?" I asked, leaning against the wall.

"No!" she started banging against the stall doors. "I need help. Oh my gosh. I need help. I'm so scared. SOMEBODY HELP ME."

Whoa, hold the phone.

"Are you okay? What's going on? Do you need me to call someone? Kate?" my heart had officially leapt into my throat.

"I'm not okay." suddenly, she burst out of the stall. Her hair looked like it had gone through a tornado. She rushed at the mirror. "Are they gone? No. Oh my gawd." she sank down against the sink and covered her face with her hands.

"What's wrong?" I asked and sat down next to her.

"Look at me." she bawled and held out her hands. At first I didn't notice anything, but then I saw it. I swallowed my own spit and started choking in that embarrassing way that always happens in the middle of awkward silences.

Kate had claws.

I mean, they weren't huge claws or anything, but they were most definitely claws and they were most definitely attached to the ends of her fingers.

"Are those are fake nails?" I said, feeling the throbbing in my head return with vengeance.

"Look at my eyes." she said.

She snapped an eye open and I saw that it was no longer fake blue. Instead, her entire eye was green except for the pupil, which was a thin slit.

Her mascara ran in long smudges underneath her eyes.

No. No, please. Please, let Kate not be a mutant. She cannot be the next addition to my group. But, I need to find four more mutant children. But, I hate her. But, if she joins, I'll only need to find three more people. But I hate her. But-

"What's wrong with me? I didn't do anything! And today…it…it just happened and now I look like a freak and I feel like there's hair at the back of my throat and I can't cough it…" she gave a hacking cough. "…I can't cough it up!" she cried and threw herself against me and sobbed into my shirt.

I leaned back, feeling awkward and also kind of sorry for her. This was a strange feeling. I mean, how could I be feeling any empathy for Kate? We hated each other. But…she was crying and it was freaking me out.

"Okay, Kate…just…just calm down. Everything is going to be okay." I awkwardly put my hand on her shoulder, then decided that wasn't cool and dropped my hand.

Was everything going to be okay? Because at this point, I really didn't know. Suddenly, I heard something. It was sort of like a slamming sound mixed with a strangled yell.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"What are you talking about?" she said.

Oh, you know, us dogs with our super-duper hearing abilities.

I heard it again. "Okay, I'll be right back."

"NO. Please don't leave me." she latched onto my leg.

"Kate, you're not four years old, get off me. I'll be right back."

"I'm not coming with you! I look ugly." she sobbed.

I rolled my eyes and blew a strand of hair out of my face. I burst through the door. What I saw was not good. Actually, it was pretty much under the category of "horror movie bad".

The door to the Family Fun Center was off its hinges and there were three men in white coats standing in the middle of the room. One of them was holding back a frenetic Jay, who looked more scared than I think I've ever seen him. His eyes darted around like he was trying to find an escape.

There was a beeping sound and suddenly, the sprinklers in the restaurant went off. I shook myself repeatedly and heard Kate run out behind me.

She pushed herself up against the wall, screaming, "Don't let it touch me!"

At first, I thought that she meant the Whitecoats, but then I realized she was talking about the water.

Suddenly, Kathryn walked in. Her already big eyes widened considerably, but she didn't move. Then she put her hands on her hips. "Screw this. I'm outta here." she threw down her apron and walked out of the restaurant.

"There's two more. Get them." the Whitecoat holding Jay back barked.

The next few seconds were a blur, so don't expect me to describe them to you.

All I knew was that I was pretty sure Jay wasn't going to get home for his bedtime.

**So…did you like it? Not to sound desperate, but I'm kind of desperate. So please review this! It's kind of short, but I'll try to make the other ones longer. Give me any suggestions and if I made any spelling or grammar mistakes, please feel free to report me to the grammar police. Okay? Good. REVIEW. **


	10. The School

**Chapter 10**

I woke up to a creaking sound. I must have fallen asleep. My mind was still in dream mode, so I didn't realize where I was until I was forced out of the truck by someone who had definitely been working out.

"Hey, wha-?" were my intelligent last words before I was thrown into what seemed to be a slightly oversized dog crate. I banged against the back of the cage and immediately crawled to the front, only to have the crate door slammed on my fingers.

"Wait here." said a voice.

What the heck was going on? My mind raced trying to determine where I was and stay awake at the same time. I had no idea what time it was because the van that we had been taken in had parked in a weird giant garage with flickering white lights and buzzing sounds. I shook on the cage door, but I noticed that the locking mechanism was not one of those easy bars that you slide to get out. I was screwed.

Suddenly my thoughts froze. Had I been kidnapped? I mean, my mom always lectured me about not accepting candy or rides from strangers and staying away from older men in general, but I never thought those things would ever be real to me like they were now.

I choked on tears and dust, which seemed to everywhere on the ground level.

My tiny yorkie heart was beating faster than a hummingbird's wings at the thought of being kidnapped.

Oh, wait.

I turned my head to the side and saw the label "Experiment H-07".

The memory of men in white coats invading the Family Fun Diner flashed through my mind.

I knew where I was.

"NO! No, please, no. Not again! You…can't…do…this…to me!" I recognized Jay's worried tone.

I pressed my face against the bars and saw him being dragged by two official-looking men toward what I assumed was another dog crate, next to me.

He was trying desperately to escape, but there was just no way, seeing as both the men looked like they could snap him in half without breaking a sweat.

I heard a clanging sound as he was thrown into the dog crate.

"Jay! Jay, are you there?" I said. My legs were totally cramping up from being smushed against the sides of the crate. Also, my neck was hurting from bending in this awkward, but necessary position. AND my fingers hurt from where those STUPID JERKS slammed the cage door on them.

"We're at the school." Jay said, his breathing uneven and shaky.

"Yeah. I know. Don't worry, we'll figure this out." I said, half-reassuring myself.

"Ella, there's something that I haven't told you and I think I probably should because it's something you should probably know." he said.

"What?" I said.

Suddenly, someone's face was pressed up against my dog crate.

I yelped. "Oh my gosh! Who are you?"

The man didn't respond. He was quite bald, except for around the ear area, where he had tufts of reddish-orange fuzz. His glasses were small and wiry and barely fit on his pudgy face, which was covered in lots of freckles. His eyes were blue and watery, but completely voice of any interesting emotion. His nose was one of those ugly fat noses that only really obnoxious people seem to have. In other words, in a past life, he was probably the troll who lived under the bridge.

He stared at me until I felt awkward and uncomfortable. "Um…" I said, hoping that he would see whatever he was looking for and move on.

"This is Experiment H-07." said a gruff voice behind him.

"No, it isn't." I said.

Someone banged their fist against my cage and I winced.

"I don't get it." the troll said. His voice sounded exactley like Squidward from Spongebob Sqaurepants. "What does it do?"

"According to her profile, she is 3% Yorkshire terrier." the voice sounded like it was trying to hold back laughing.

The troll back away, giving me a chance to recover from being stared at by someone hideously ugly and creepy. "You mean…like the poodle?"

WTF? No.

"Uh…kind of, sir. But not really. They're different breeds, but both part of the canine species."

Mr. Troll didn't seem to completely understand what the man behind him said, but he wrote something on the clipboard he was holding. "Alright, sounds good. I'm allergic to poodles."

Okay, you can't be allergic to just poodles, can you? How did this guy become a Whitecoat? Was the School having a shortage and needed to do a draft from the Stupid and Ugly Center. Oh, snap, I went there.

They both moved out of my line of vision. I heard Jay make a strangled crying sound.

"Let me go!"

I heard the cage rattle.

The two idiots ignored him completely.

"This is experiment B-89."

"Really?" Mr. Troll said in a whiny voice. "He looked so much cooler when he was 6."

Wait. Hold up.

If I remember correctly, Jay had told me that he'd never heard of the school, let alone been there. That means he lied to me, the girl who he just recently met, who he knows absolutely nothing about except that she was also a mutant.

Okay, it sounded more like an accusation in my head.

"And he is-"

"Part chameleon." the troll finished.

Suddenly, another voice broke through the awkward silence.

"Magahi. Stepholocaucus. You two are not permitted in this area at this time. These experiments are mind and should be treated as such. Don't let me catch you trying to deal with them again."

It was a woman's voice.

And it pretty much made sense that the troll guy's last name was actually Stepholocaucus.

"Sorry!"

"Sorry ma'am."

"We're truly, very sorry."

"Oh, for the love of God. Please leave." she said.

I heard quick footsteps as the two weirdoes stumbled out the door, still apologizing over their shoulders.

Then, I heard the cracking sound of a walkie-talkie being turned on.

"Where is Experiment R-25?" she said.

I heard more crackling sounds, but nothing I could make into sentences.

"Okay. Thank you." she deadpanned.

I felt my crate being lifted and then dropped onto a rolling cart. I was now sort of facing the woman. She had dark hair, which was pulled back into a super tight ponytail. Her eyes were so dark that I couldn't see her pupils. She was beautiful, but she also looked harsh as if she might rip your head off with her teeth if you asked where the bathroom was.

She was wearing a Whitecoat, but she was wearing a slinky black dress underneath it. That was confusing because most evil sadistic scientists don't go on hot dates in their off-hours.

She walked over to Jay's crate and picked it up to put it on the cart. She seemed way to strong for her thin frame. Maybe she did P90X.

"Please don't hurt us." Jay said, without emotion.

"I'm not going to make casual conversation with an experiment." she said.

"It's not casual. I just-" Jay was cut off by his crate falling off the cart.

There was a crashing sound and he cried out.

"Jay!" I yelled.

"Oops. Sometimes my fingers slip when I'm dealing with mutants who don't know when to shut up." the woman said, placing the crate back onto the cart.

Um, bitch?

I heard the dog crate being placed back on the cart and we started rolling.

My mind suddenly had all this free time to think about what had happened:

1. We'd obviously been kidnapped by a bunch of hostile scientists who were only supposed to exist in my sister's world.

2. Everyone here was apparently crazy and had decided that child abuse was okay.

3. I was being rolled down a hall by a creepy lady who didn't like mutant kids at all and probably wanted to experiment on us.

4. My life, as we speak, was pretty much stuck in an eternal toilet bowl.

Ever see one of those commercials with a mildly attractive nobody in her 40s, holding a puppy in her arms, with a Josh Groban track playing in the background as images of sick or injured puppies come across the screen. Doesn't that make you want to save all these puppies?

Well, multiply that by two million and you'll get an idea of what you feel like when you're at the school.

First of all, there was screaming. Everywhere we turned there was someone screaming. They were feint, covered up by doors, but never the less, the hairs on my arms stood up straight.

There were glass window panes where you could see everything that was going on inside the rooms. I couldn't stop watching as we rolled by. What I saw made me sick to my stomach.

In one room, a girl with 6 extra arms was trying to climb the wall while a timer counted down. She was sweating profusely and had bruises and scrapes on her face. Her eyes were dead.

In the next room, there was a boy, probably a year or two younger than me being zapped with electricity every time he moved a puzzle piece into the wrong area. Every time he was zapped, he would shake himself and stare at the puzzle some more before moving his next piece. He looked so young and determined.

The last room in the hallway was the worst. There was a snake wrapped around a teenage girl's arm and I could hear her screaming as its fangs got closer to her neck. There was a red light and a siren going off to warn whoever the scientist was that ran this experiment, but there was no way he was going to be able to get the snake off in time.

"Don't look."

It was Jay's voice. "You don't have to look."

And that's when I realized how unfair this was. These people didn't care if I was 14 and had my middle school graduation in a few days. They didn't care if I was young or old. They were going to hurt me.

I wanted to save all of these puppies.

Most of all, I wanted my mom.

When Max visited us, she never gave away any specific information about the School. I had no idea that one place could make you feel so depressed and scared than the fluorescently lit hallways which led to the fluorescently lit rooms.

The woman had kindly left me and Jay in an dark room that resembled a garage with mice in it.

All I could hear was Jay's breathing and my breathing. It was eerie.

"Jay, are you there?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

I heard him sigh, "Yeah."

"Okay." I said. "Do you think we should do something to pass the time?"

"Um…" he said, and for a second, I heard the part of Jay that I liked: the sarcastic, witty, dorky Jay. "I don't know. Should we sing show tunes?"

I nodded and laughed. My laugh sounded more like a cough, but it made me feel much better anyway.

The silence enveloped us once again and I tapped against the inside of my crate.

"The sun'll come out tomorrow." Jay suddenly sang. I could almost hear him smile, only not really.

"Jay, you know this song?" I said.

"Hey, keep singing."

"Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow they'll be sun." I sang.

"Not bad. You have a nice voice."

"Hey, keep singing." I said.

We finished up to the second round of 'tomorrow's when suddenly, Mr. Troll burst into the room.

"Hey, kiddies." he said.

Jay swallowed the words, "you're only a day away."

Mr. Troll looked at my cage and then at Jay's cage.

"They need to ask you some questions before you can begin experimentation. But I just wanted to let you know that I hate kids." Wow, this guy was so mature.

Jay whimpered.

"Bite me." I said, throwing away my dignity in one cliché little line. "Leave us alone."

"Oh, is the puppy upset?" he laughed. "Does the puppy want a bone?"

"Hey, you. Shut up. You're a jerk." Jay said.

Troll guy scowled and threw open my cage door. He yanked me out by my hair and pulled me to my feet. Then, he attached a child leash around my chest and shoulders. He did the same thing to Jay. I saw Jay's eyes bug out when Mr. Troll touched him.

Mr. Troll messed with Jay's hair. "Hey, kid. Remember me?" he said.

Jay gulped and looked at his feet, which told me that he probably remembered him. I officially could not stand Mr. Troll.

The child leash was black and leathery. I tried to tug on it and felt a zap inside my head. My eyes blacked out for a second and I felt like I was going to puke. Mr. Troll looked happy, the sick jerk.

"New technology to restrain the freaks from attacking." he said. "Now, let's get down to business."


	11. Miss Very Scary and Evil

**Hey, I am somewhat proud of myself for getting this chapter done quickly. I mean, seeing as the rest of my chapters took about seven years to post…but yeah, I am pretty much on my high horse right now. And nobody…in all of Oz…no Wizard that there is, or was…is EVER gonna bring MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DOOOOOOWNNNN. (Sorry, I'm listening to the soundtrack of Wicked in the background and it's influencing my writing. Don't be surprised if flying monkeys are including in this chapter. Just kidding. I think. **

**Disclaimer: Yeah, Maximum Ride is NOT mine. If you haven't figured that out by this point, there's really no way for me to help you. However, my characters are mine. Especially Jay. Because I've developed an unhealthy crush on him. And I don't think it's okay. **

**LET'S GET THIS CHAPTER STARTED! **

**Chapter 11**

We were roughly escorted into a room that looked like one of those insane asylums. You know the drill, padded and white, like a giant hollow marshmallow. Maybe that's not an accurate way of describing it, but I was hungry as heck. The last time I had eaten was before I went to Zendi's house and that was…a long time ago.

There was the lady from before who hated kids. She was sitting behind a desk with four overturned pieces of photo paper in front of her. She was just sitting there, staring at us with her soulless black eyes. She had a small smirk on her face. I bet she also laughs at funerals.

Three teenage Whitecoats were standing behind her. What was this, an internship to work in Hell?

"Ma'am…?" Mr. Troll said slowly, as if he was afraid to interrupt her awkward staring. "Is there any way that I could convince you to allow me to oversee the meeting? I feel as if it's my duty-"

"You know what your job is. If and when your job is necessary, I will inform you immediately. Until then, I would like you to leave," she said.

"But, ma'am-"

"Don't you dare," she snarled, slamming her fist down on the table and making Jay jump about a foot in the air.

"Ha-ha," I said, under my breath. Mr. Troll heard me and gave me a look. I can't exactly say it was a scary look. It looked more like he really had to go to the bathroom. But, I'm sure he intended it to be scary.

He walked out of the room, and I heard his footsteps all the way down the hallways.

"Take a seat," the lady said.

"There aren't any chairs," I said.

"I told you to take a seat,"

We sat on the ground in front of her desk. The floor was cold, but that wasn't really at the top of my, "Current Things to Worry About" list.

"David, take their temperature," she said to the young Whitecoat with bug eyes and a shock of red hair.

"Why?" he said.

"I need to make sure that they're healthy and not going to spread mutant diseases to us."

"That doesn't make any sense, Mom," the boy said. He was her son? And he didn't want to do stupid stuff to us? Smart child.

"David, honey," she turned around to face him. "Be quiet now and take their temperature or else."

Her voice was sweet. David swallowed and ran over with a thermometer. It was one of those new weird ones that you have to run across your forehead.

"Sorry about this," David said, not meeting our eyes. He moved it across my forehead quickly and then Jay's.

"They're healthy," he said, and shoved the thermometer in his pocket.

"Wonderful," she said. "Children, my name is Miss Marshall. You may take off your electricity-enhanced restraining devices."

"You mean…the child leashes?" Jay asked, tugging at one of the straps on his.

"Obviously. I have a few questions for both of you."

"Oh," I said, taking the leash off and tossing it on the ground next to me.

Questions are good. I'm good with questions. In fact, I was in my school's Jeopardy club. Shut up, it looks good on a college application.

"If you fail to answer the questions correctly, we will be forced to convince you to tell the truth using undesirable methods," Miss Marshall said.

"Oh. Well, okay."

I mean, what else was I going to say? I didn't really want to find out what she meant by 'undesirable methods' because something told me that they might be slightly undesirable.

"If you don't know the answer say I don't know," Jay whispered. "I've been in this room before. It's wired with lie detectors. If one starts flashing," his eyes flicked over to me, "they might kill us."

"I think I'm going to wet myself," I said, trying to regain my composure.

Jay laughed into his hand.

"What are you two talking about?" Miss Marshall snarled. "I did not give you permission to have a personal conversation."

"That was hardly a personal conversation, ma'am. You were completely included in it." Jay said.

She pursed her lips and looked around. I realized she was trying to figure out why the lie detectors hadn't gone off. She sighed, exasperatedly and picked up a piece of photo paper and showed me it. It was a blurry shot of a tall, thin girl with messy blonde hair, flying through the air. With enormous wings.

I sucked in a breath of air. "Max!" I blurted.

"You know who this is?" Miss Marshall said. "Can you tell me who this is in relation to you?"

"She's my…uh…half-sister," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Max is my half-sister."

"Yes…I understand that. But, do you know anything about Max?" Miss Marshall asked, waving the picture around.

"She really likes chocolate chip cookies. My mom's chocolate chip cookies," I said.

"That's not what I mean."

"What _do _you mean, Miss Marshall?" I said. Wow, I was almost veering into 'Max' category with my snarkiness. Max always has great comebacks. I'm usually the one who maintains the quiet "girl-next-door" façade, but you know what? I'm pretty sure the quiet "girl-next-door" isn't going to survive in the School very long.

"Do you know where Max is?" Miss Marshall said.

"Like…right now? Where she is right now?" I said, feeling my palms get sweaty.

"Yes. Where she is right now?" Miss Marshall rolled her eyes.

First of all, I had no idea where Max had gone after I'd last seen her. For all I know, she could be living it up in California with a tan and millions of boys wooing her. Though, I kind of doubt that, seeing as Max is way too high-strung to ever talk about hot guys in casual conversation. Trust me; I've tried.

Second, even if I did know where she was, there was no freakin' way that I was going to tell Miss Evil and Very Scary over here. Max is my sister and there's not a chance that I was going to betray her and hand her over to the school.

I mostly remember Max's and my last conversation. She was talking about how my mom should set up a cookie business called "Dr. Martinez's Homemade Cookies" so that we could become billionaires and give free samples to girls named Max.

But, I don't think she told me where she was going…

I glanced over at Jay. He shrugged.

"Ella," she said, using my real name instead of my mutant label. "You need to tell me where your sister is because if we don't know, we can't…keep her safe. She might be in danger and you might just be the only thing keeping us from helping her. Not to mention that without this information, you're basically useless to us and it would be very easy to dispose of you," she smiled.

Well, as you might have guessed, that gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside.

"Do you know where your sister is?" Miss Marshall asked again.

"No," I said.

The whole room went silent except for the ticking sound of the clock on the wall. _Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…_

"No, you don't know or no, you won't tell me?" she said.

"Both," I said, quietly but powerfully. "You don't want to help my sister; I know that for a fact. This is the school. You kidnapped me, but I'm not an idiot." I felt everyone's eyes on me, including Jay, but I didn't break eye contact with Miss Marshall.

I felt really strong, like I could take down a professional wrestler or something. Miss Marshall stared at me like I'd snapped her with a rubber band.

"Are you sure that's your final answer?" she said.

"Yeah. I'm positive," I said.

She simply said, "That's unfortunate."

Suddenly, I heard a screeching sound from right outside the door, followed by a long stream of obscenities that I won't write here.

"Experiment R-25, stay where you are or else," said a man's voice.

"Or else what you f**king motherf**kers!"

See? Little asterisks work quite well right there.

Miss Marshall jumped up as a girl in a scratched up white hospital gown bolted into the room and closed the door. Her brown hair was a mess of knots and her makeup was smeared all over her tan face.

"Kate!" I said, happy to see her for the absolute first time in my entire life. I didn't know she had even been kidnapped.

"Ella! And…you!" she said, pointing at Jay. "It's so great to see you guys. You'll never believe-"

Suddenly, the door was thrown open by something that looked like a walking wolf.

Eraser. Max told me about them. They were half-wolf and completely insane.

But, I never imagined them to be so…tall. That thing was HUGE.

"Oh, dear God," Jay said, crawling backward. "It's gonna eat us. We're gonna die."

"What's the meaning of this?" Mrs. Marshall barked.

"R-25 was in the middle of examination and she escaped," the Eraser said. It was really awkward, seeing a wolf talking. "I was sent as backup."

A man in Whitecoat attire stepped out from behind the Eraser. He looked sheepish and his face had a long scratch running from the corner of his eye to his jaw. .

"You needed reinforcement to help you trap a girl who's part _kitten_?" Miss Marshall said. She put her index finger and thumb on the bridge of her nose and sighed. She seems to do that a lot. "Get out of here."

"If you'll just come with us-" the man grabbed Kate's clawed hand. She started shrieking.

"Leave the girl," Miss Marshall said.

The Whitecoat and the Eraser left.

"I still have a few more questions." Miss Marshall said.

"Me too. First of all, where the hell are we? Second, if you don't let me out of this place, I'll call my dad and we'll sue your ass off," Kate said. She flashed me the thumbs up. Leave it to Kate to be the bravest person ever.

"Your second 'question' was not a question." David said from behind his mom.

"I swear to God, I'll kill you. I don't freakin' care if it's not a question. Go screw yourself," Kate said.

"Children," Miss Marshall said.

"Bitch," Kate said.

"Alright, that's it. You," she pointed at me, "have failed to answer my question and you," she pointed at Kate, "are insubordinate and are acting inappropriately. I have no choice but to leave the questioning until a later time when you are all less rebellious. For now, we will begin the tests." She punched a button on her desk. It didn't say, "That was easy!" so I began to worry about what it was actually for.

Miss Marshall stood up and walked out, motioning for the Whitecoats-in-training to follow her. On the way out, she grabbed my arm and whispered into my ear, "I know Jeb Batcheldor got you into this and that you're looking for a group of mutants. I give my word, I will stop you. Have fun, Ella Martinez."

The mechanical door slid shut behind her and the lights flicked off, leaving us in complete darkness, with no way out.

**So…yeah. That was Chapter 11. I really hope you read and review because that would be amazing and fantastic and it would make my day. Just saying. Not that I'm desperate, but I'm totally desperate. And thank you to all who DID review because I love you and I think you're amazing even though I don't really know you at all. THANKS GUYS. **

**Okay, I'm gonna try to finish Chapter 12 soon. WHOOP. YEAH. OKAY. I'M GOING NOW. BYE. **


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